Stuff about Anne
Anne's Brain
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Yep, I've got one.
And that is a scan of it taken with an MRI system. (That's
"Magnetic Resonance Imaging" previously known as "Nuclear Magnetic
Resonance" imaging, until the "nuclear" scared people and they changed
it.) Never fear, I was just an experimental subject, we weren't
hunting for anything in particular! I made a two other versions, one 600x573 pixels (233K) for moderate
detail, and one 943x900 pixels
(568K) if you want to see everything!
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School:
From Kindergarden to 9th grade I went to a great school in New Haven,
CT called The Foote School.
I graduated from MIT, Class of 1985, with an SB in
Aeronautical
Engineering. I worked at MIT doing educational computing research
and design until around the end of the year 2000. (Why educational
computing, when I put all that sweat into an Aero Astro degree? Good
question. Serendipity, mostly - and it
turns out that I'm better at being the "liaison" and synthesis person
in technology design, helping translate user needs to designer-speak
and pull disparate parts of a project together, than I am at designing
the base technologies from scratch. I still always get a seat on the wing when I fly, though,
just so I can watch what's going on, and then describe it to whoever
is lucky enough to sit by me...My friends don't like flying with me,
for some reason.)
My friends in Academic Computing
Services put together a
pretty hilarious set of photos of me as part of my farewell party when I left IS in
January, 1995. The only one I regret them finding is my freshman
photo. Yikes! Please note that almost all the links off that page are
photos, and so may take a while to load.
Interests:
I'm interested in everything, pretty much. My main hobby is
collecting other hobbies. Really. Name something and I've probably
tried it, and most likely I've got the tools for it in the basement.
(On a related note, this is probably part of why I'm an Answer Grape. Or it could be because
I'm one. Dunno.) Anyway, the current (active) list:
- Sailing at the MIT
Nautical Association. On a related note, this is a picture of me (55K
gif) at the helm of a slightly larger boat off Newport, RI a couple of years ago. I also crew a J24 and a J30 on Narragansett Bay.
- origami - Japanese paper folding.
(I've recently put together a catalog of my
book collection, where you can search for authors, titles and
ISBNs, and follow links to places to get copies of your own - for those
in print.)
- Japanese brush painting
- gardening
- fixing things around the house my S.O. Jon and I own (the
place is only 113 years old, things break now and then.) (And, yes,
the photo on his homepage is way up there in the "worst possible human
photograph" list.) Jon took this picture
(285K GIF) of the house after one of the snow storms in the winter of
'94-95. And you can see an aerial
photo (JPEG) of the house courtesy of the MIT Digital Orthophoto Browser
project.
- keeping the cat-entropy levels in the
house from getting too high.
- practicing my Japanese so I don't forget it all. This is not
too hard, one of my officemates is Japanese...And then
there's the whole Web site I
maintain.
- working on the N-scale model railroad I finally brought back
from my parents' house
- sleeping, when I have the time (ha)
Things to try or get back to soon:
- Biking
- making paper
- woodworking (so we can get the bookcases built, and rid the
living room of the mound of boxes.)
- playing with concrete (gotta finish repairing the front steps...)
Things I'd like to have time for but don't right now:
- do some more glassblowing (take a look at Josh Simpson's work for stuff I wish I could do)
- learn to play the harmonica
- learn how to weave stuff
- make a quilt
- learn how to watercolor
- learn how to hand-assemble books (sewn bindings)
That oughta keep me busy for the next several lifetimes. As if you
couldn't guess, I'm a firm believer in the Robert Heinlein
character's quote:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an
invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a
sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying,
take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations,
analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty
meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for
insects.
...And if you've gotten this far, you'll notice that I do ramble on
a bit. One of my worst faults, I talk too much. :)
Gratuitous list of interesting places to visit:
Some day I'll add more, or maybe organize my hotlist here or
something. Ya, in my spare time.
- The sky was falling! (Comet Shoemaker-Levy hitting
Jupiter.)
- Listen (with the Real Audio plug-in) to real-time air
traffic control near Chicago
- To better understand MIT people, first understand their sense
of humor. This
is a good example.
- The Annals of Improbable
Research is also a funny place.
- And there's my friend Gary Dryfoos' collection, Funny Pages.
(Warning: many of the jokes from there are not, shall we say,
particularly Politically Correct. I think most of them are hilarious,
but your mileage may differ. Don't say I didn't warn ya.)
- And, on a related, note, ever wondered what Scotsmen wear under their kilts?
- Ever wondered just how many types of soda (or "pop" or "tonic")
are called Dr. {something}? So did a friend of
mine.
- Do you like magic tricks?
- Go here if you're bored, and have java enabled on your browser.
- Those of you who like words might like the A.Word.A.Day site, and the mailing list it runs.
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Though I generally abhor animated gifs, this one is so funny I
can't resist. Plus, I like the idea it represents - this page (and
most of those I maintain) ought to look the same, or at least work,
with any browser, even text-only.
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Navigational Assistance:
Anne's Home Page is sort of "up" from
here...
Date last modified: 6-Dec-1999
Copyright 1999 Anne R. LaVin
This page's URL: http://web.mit.edu/lavin/www/personal.html
